The war on free speech has taken an ominous turn. It was bad enough when campaign finance “reformers” were imploring the Congress and courts to stifle core political speech. But now they’ve adopted a new tactic:
Since the Supreme Court’s January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass legislation to repeal the First Amendment for business, though not for unions. Having failed on that score, they’re now turning to legal and political threats. Funny how all of this outrage never surfaced when the likes of Peter Lewis of Progressive insurance and George Soros helped to make Democrats financially dominant in 2006 and 2008.
Chairman Max Baucus of the powerful Senate Finance Committee got the threats going last month when he asked Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate if certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity. Lest there be any confusion about his targets, the Montana Democrat flagged articles focused on GOP-leaning groups, including Americans for Job Security and American Crossroads.
Not since Richard Nixon has the IRS been employed to target political enemies. Where does the IRS commissioner stand on this? Is he going to take auditing directions from politicians seeking partisan advantage? It would be appropriate when Congress convenes in January for the new GOP chairmen to conduct some hearings and make sure the IRS isn’t going to allow itself to be used in this fashion. The surest way, however, to prevent that is for Democratic pols to cease using the tax authority to intimidate and attack their political opponents.